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Paper used for making cigarettes

Rolling paper is a specialty paper used for making cigarettes (commercially manufactured filter cigarettes and individually made roll your own cigarettes). Rolling papers are packs of several cigarette size sheets, often folded inside a cardboard wrapper. They are also known as 'blanks', which are used to encase tobacco or cannabis. It may be flavoured. Rolling papers are also used for rolling cannabis cigarettes called joints.

Paper cigarettes became popular in the second half of the 19th century, displacing the more expensive cigars and cigarillos. As cigars and cigarillos were expensive, the beggars of Spain would collect the cigar butts from the ground and roll them in pieces of paper to be smoked. During the Crimean War this culture became more prevalent and British soldiers learned how to roll tobacco in newspapers. Frequent use of rolling paper became a custom, and to fulfil the need, rolling paper companies Pay Pay, Smoking, and Rizla emerged.

In 2008, Tobacconist Magazine called roll your own (RYO) the tobacco industry's fastest growing segment. It estimates that 2–4% of cigarette smokers in the United States, or approximately 2.6 million people, make their own cigarettes. Many of these smokers have switched in response to increasingly high taxes on manufactured cigarettes.

In 2000, a Canadian government survey estimated that 9% of Canada's 6,000,000 cigarette smokers smoked hand rolled cigarettes "sometimes or most of the time", 7% smoked roll your owns "exclusively", and over 90% of rolling papers sold in Canada were for tobacco consumption. A more recent 2009 study has shown that approximately 925,000 Canadians roll their own cigarettes.

According to The Publican, "Low price RYO has seen an astonishing rise of 175% in [2007] as cigarette smokers look for cheaper alternatives and to control the size of their smoke". The National Health Service has reported that roll your own use has more than doubled since 1990, from 11% to 24%. Many of these smokers apparently believe that hand rolled cigarettes are less harmful than manufactured products, although it is equally possible that the increase is due to the steep rise in prices since the early 1990s to the present day.

In Thailand, smokers of roll your own cigarettes have long outnumbered smokers of manufactured brands. A 2008 survey found that 58% of surveyed smokers in Thailand rolled their own cigarettes, compared to just 17% in neighbouring Malaysia.

The New Zealand Ministry of Health reported in 2005 that: 'The ratio of roll your own to manufactured or tailor made cigarettes consumed by New Zealanders has risen over (at least) the past decade, perhaps reflecting price differences between these products, and currently approaching 50 percent overall.'

As the prices of cigarettes rise year after year, roll your own is becoming a trend among Indian smokers. Rolling papers and rolling tobacco are now easily accessible and can be bought at almost any Pan Shops in India.

Consumers' switching to roll your own has led to a response among certain tax authorities. In the United States, Indiana and Kentucky tax rolling papers. Kentucky set its tax at $0.25 per pack (for up to 32 leaves, larger packs are taxed at $0.0078 per leaf) in 2006 despite complaints from manufacturers. Louisiana Revised Statute 47:338.261 allows up to $1.25 per pack at retail.

The FDA stated in 2011 that every brand (including private labels) of cigarette rolling papers sold in the US must submit their ingredients and seek agency approval or withdraw from the marketplace by March of that year if they had not been sold in the US before February 15, 2007.